Bagaudae

The Bagaudae were a coalition of rural landlords and farmers in Roman Gaul and Hispania who rose in rebellion against central government agents during the Crisis of the Third Century. The Roman Empire passed restrictive laws which forced the coloni to pay higher taxes to support its large and inefficient military, forced them to flee into the care of large aristocrats who could protect them from imperial authority, and made their trades (and, therefore, their social status) hereditary and confined them to their ancestral homes. The rural Bagaudae (meaning "warriors" in Gallic) rose in rebellion against the Roman government in France and Spain, but they were ruthlessly repressed, disrupting normal agricultural production and leading to the abandonment of large former farmlands. The Roman government branded them as brigands who pillaged the countryside, but later historians, especially during the French Revolution, saw the Bagaudae as freedom fighters who fought for "liberty, equality, and fraternity".